On Clothes
Kahlil Gibran

Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful.
And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy you may find in them a harness and a chain.
Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of your skin and less of your raiment,
For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is in the wind.

Some of you say,"It is the north wind who has woven the clothes we wear."
And I say, Ay, it was the north wind,
But shame was his loom, and the softening of the sinews was his thread.
And when his work was done he laughed in the forest.
Forget not that modesty is for a shield against the eye of the unclean.

And when the unclean shall be no more, what were modesty but a fetter and a fouling of the mind?
And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

There is nothing wrong or bad with the natural, nude body.

I remember as a young man, I shied away from some sporting activites because I didn't want anyone to see me with no shirt on and make fun of me.

Your question has me wondering if parents should TRY to raise their children to be comfortable with their bodies. Nude beaches at a young age may help. More family sporting activities should also help.

In Europe nudity is very normal.
They have half if the issues that we do because it's not taboo it's natural. Rape and molestation is not as commonplace.

We took a vacation to the Baltic sea with our kids when they were younger. Germany doesn't have any rules about nudity on public beaches... most people wore something, but a few were nude. The kids didn't care at all. There certainly wasn't anything overtly sexual about it.

Am unclothed body has never hurt anyone. The problem is the view that it's obscene.

What's wrong with it? It's not sexual. It's just the human form. Sheltering kids probably leads them to become more rebellious later on. It makes them more curious. If you teach them early on you can at least ensure the info you're giving them is honest and as correct as possible and not misleading or leaving it up to someone else to "teach" them something that might be detrimental to their growth or health. I'm not saying you have to let the fig and grapes flap in front of them all the time though lol

I think it's culture based, not inherently problematic. Children in the rainforest grow up in communities where everyone was naked. It's unlikely that primitive cultures held such strict rules of modesty for the majority of human history. Kids feel disturbed when they have already built a framework for the world, and then they are exposed to something that dramatically deviates from that in a dramatic way.

We don't practice modesty much on our home and I can say that at least up to age 4, kids don't get what the big to do is about clothes and bodies, of they aren't indoctrinated that the human body is embarrassing or inappropriate to see/show.

Americans, puritans that they are at heart, have been raised this way. It's difficult to change, even if most of these puritans knew they had these beliefs to the point where they'd want to change them. I've enjoyed the nude beach, and to your point about children, families brought children there (Playalinda Beach, on Canaveral Seashore in FL), and without exception, the children were in bathing suits, while their parent/guardians were nude. Everyone seemed calm and relaxed. I do not have children, but if I did, I'd probably do it the same way. We would talk about it and see what the child wanted to do.

I grew up in Greece that is a religious place however on the beach by my house, at least, most women went topless. There was nothing to it. People moved around as usual. The only time something weird wouldbe noticed was from American tourists..I couldn't figure out why until I got here. But yeah teaching children from an early age that nudity is natural is the way to go.

It is completey normal for people to be nude. I live in a country where nudity at the beach, whilst not practiced by all, is however, perfectly legal, with the proviso that a person is not being lewd. That is, if you are just partaking in normal, non-sexual activities, it is absolutely fine to be nude at the beach, with or without children present. The US and other countries have issues with nudity because of historical reasons. As noted by others, most countries in Europe don't have these issues. Some adults seem to think that children seeing adults nude will cause the child to be traumatised. This is not the case. The child, on first seeing a nude adult may be interested in how the adult looks, but will soon become bored and move on to doing more interesting things.

I think nudity in tribes is very excepted so being a naturist is too I guess. it's not my thing and some people are very vulnerable. I'm not ashamed of my body and nobody should be.

If kids aren't raised to treat the naked human form like it's some sort of "bad" thing, seeing
naked people wouldn't be any kind of a problem. Adults have more a problem with it than kids do.
We're all born naked. Clothes are basically for bodily protection from the elements.
Religion is what made being nude "sinful".
Yet another reason to say "fuck religion".

Loaded question. I'll tell you why. My parents were nudists when I was growing up. I suppose my mother convinced my mom to be one too. In my post-puberty early teens, when we lived in Sacramento, we'd occasionally visit a family nudist park (Glen Eden maybe? I've blocked out the name). Well, there were lots of kids of all ages, but I was very self-conscious and hated it. I will never forget going into the swimming pool and having a young guy around my age or so trying to have a conversation with me without his eyes constantly drifting down to my underwater body. I tried my best to stay wrapped in a towel as much as possible. Given that embarrassing situation, I would say that for young kids, no big deal so be among a batch of people talking, eating, playing volleyball and shuffleboard with nothing on. But when a young person approaches puberty and the teens, a parent needs to be open with her/him and get their full and informed consent. As I said, I hated it and no one knew or cared, apparently. I don't think I am more or less bodily self-conscious all these decades later because of it. It's not seeing a lot of nude bodies of all shapes that's potentially a problem. It's the lack of conversation and consent that needs to be addressed. (My elderly dad still has nude photos of him and my mom that he took at that camp. Fond memories for him, I assume. I would nix that if I were my mom.)

What's wrong with bodies?

Since it is acceptable now to breast feed kids until they are old enough to chew meat, why not take 'em to a topless beach?

I DEFINITELY would NOT take my 12 year old son to one. Going through the Discovery Period which is the teenage years is hard enough without adding more fuel to the fire!

I have seen kids as young as 6 months old in nude resorts and beaches. See, if you hide something...the natural curiosity of the kids will make them to look for it...and they will find it..the same with the body.

It only becomes problematic (leaving out public sex, that is another topic) once the kids start becoming body concious. Not merely inquisitive but actually "i don't like others seeing my body" or "I get freaked out seeing other peoples bodies" body concious.
My experience has been that girls do this more and earlier than boys but not exclusively so. It seems to be a stage most kids go through in early puberty.

Maybe nudist are like atheists. They're living free and don't care?
Besides, depending on their age, learning about the other gender is part of learning and growing up.

The skin is the atmosphere of the body, the borderline, the last bio layer that seperates you from the outside werld, to be nude is to be you.

No problem,I like it, quite natural, and very practical, as at least I have somewhere to hang my towel...

Not a problem, my boy lived in Spain since age 2 watching topless shows in TV and attending topless beaches and today is a perfectly adapted 28 year old who don't go to strip joints, just as his father don't do either. If you teach them Respect for Women... you don't have to worry for strip joints... nude beaches won't be a problem and of no consequence then.

I wouldn't let my kids go to one in fear of pedophiles. If they are adults, I see no problem.